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David Harcourt
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Posted: 16 Mar 2007 06:50 am |
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The highlight of Season Three of Boston Legal – an episode entitled Whose God is it anyway? – involved a trial in which an employer was sued for wrongful dismissal of an employee. Here is the cast:
* The employer is Jerry Espenson, a Boston Legal regular.
* The employee is Douglas Karnes. He is a Scientologist, and it is open advocacy of his religion which has led to his dismissal from Espenson’s legal practice.
* The prosecuting attorney is Sally Heep.
* Defending Jerry Espenson is Boston Legal’s Alan Shore.
Shore and Heep were once an item. Shore bets Heep that he can win this case, even though, as Heep says: "You can’t win this, Alan. Freedom of religion – it’s one of the biggies."
Shore replies: "I suppose we could wager. Loser has to slather the winner in maple syrup and then lick it off. Winner gets to slather the loser with maple syrup and then lick it off."
NOW READ ON:
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 16 Mar 2007 06:53 am |
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Alan Shore: Scientology was invented by …
Douglas Karnes: L. Ron Hubbard.
Shore: Who started out as a science fiction writer. He said, and I quote: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, he’d start his own religion."
Karnes: You know, people like you take that quote way out of context."
Shore: Mr Karnes, what is an engram?
Karnes: An engram is basically a psychic scar. It’s the origin of illness.
Shore: And as I understand it life, according to Scientology, is all about ridding yourself of these engrams. You do this by pursuing a path of enlightenment known – help me out –
Karnes: As the bridge to total freedom.
Shore: And at each stage of the bridge you are audited by a senior church member, who hooks you up to some electronic device –
Karnes: An electropsychometer.
Shore: Is it painful?
Karnes: No
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 16 Mar 2007 06:53 am |
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Shore: And after you go through all the stages you become an operating – uh, Thetan?
Karnes: That’s right.
Shore: And OTs, as they’re called, are said to be able to communicate with animals, move inanimate objects, and leave their bodies at will. You hope to do that?
Karnes: One day.
Shore: Are Thetans immortal?
Karnes: It’s been said.
Shore: Well, in fact most Scientologists believe Brother Hubbard will return.
Karnes: And Christians believe Jesus will come again. Are they all nuts?
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 16 Mar 2007 06:54 am |
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Shore: Scientologists also believe that 75 million years ago, and evil galactic warlord – and this is where I can almost taste the maple syrup – an evil warlord by the name of Xenu dumped 13 trillion aliens from different planets into the earth’s volcanoes and vaporised them with H-bombs. You’re familiar with this?
Karnes: Yes.
Shore: And the radioactive souls of these poor, vaporised alien creatures continue to enter into our bodies, implanting engrams and false ideas about Christ and God and psychiatry. And that’s why we have to purge ourselves of all these engrams.
Karnes: Yes.
Shore: And when one releases an engram, the erasure is often accompanied by yawns or tears, swear, odour, panting, urine, vomiting and other excreta. You’ve heard that?
Karnes: Yes.
Shore: So, basically, every time you piss, puke or crap you’re a step closer to immortality.
Sally Heep: Objection!
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 16 Mar 2007 08:00 pm |
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Unfortunately as much as this intrigues me, I don't have the luxury of time to browse and read at the moment, but have bookmarked this link below to go read more (after the 24th March!)
http://www.cults.co.nz/s.php
I am also intrigued to notice a link in the same site to the 'faith' I was brought up (and am not a part of now)
http://www.macgregorministries.org/cult_groups/2x2.html
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Apr 2007 02:44 am |
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I got sidetracked shortly after starting this thread, but will now try to finish the point I was making.
First of all, Boston Legal's summary of the beliefs of Scientologists doesn't appear to be incorrect at any point. Wikipedia's article on Scientology includes this passage:
Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III has been much remarked upon: the story of Xenu and his Galactic Confederacy. Xenu (sometimes Xemu) is introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. The alien souls continue to do this today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and the advanced levels place considerable emphasis on isolating them and neutralizing their ill effects.
Scientologists have argued that the published accounts of the Xenu story and other colourful teachings are distortions of their practice, presented out of context for the purpose of ridiculing their religion. Journalists and critics of Scientology counter that the Xenu episode is part of a much wider Scientology belief that past lives on other planets are a source of negative influences on the mind and spirit in the present. Some of this has been public knowledge for decades. For instance, Hubbard's 1958 book Have You Lived Before This Life contains descriptions of past lives given by individual Scientologists during auditing sessions, including some that are reported to predate what modern astronomy estimates as the age of the universe. Internal Scientology publications are often illustrated with pictures of spaceships and oblique references to catastrophic events that happened "75 million years ago" (i.e., the Xenu incident).
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Apr 2007 02:57 am |
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Second of all, a central point of the Boston Legal episode was that, effectively, all religions are crazy. Buddhists have their funny views about cows. Christians believe that Christ walked on water etc etc.
But there is a fallacy here. The major established religions are all 600 or more years old; some of them, of course, very much older even than this.
They were established in times when scientific knowledge was a tiny fraction of what it is now, and when belief in gods and ghouls, and strange worlds beyond the grave, was universal (even if there were wildly different views about what those worlds beyond the grave were like).
Ron Hubbard's religion, however, has its genesis in the mind of a science fiction writer in the 1950s. As Wikipedia says:
Scientology is a body of teachings and related techniques developed by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard began Scientology in 1952 as a self-help philosophy, an outgrowth of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics, and later described it as a new religion. He said that it offered an exact methodology to help humans achieve awareness of their spiritual existence across many lifetimes and, simultaneously, to become more effective in the physical world. The name "Scientology" is also used to refer to the often controversial Church of Scientology, the largest organization promoting the practice of Scientology, which is itself part of a network of affiliated organizations that claim ownership and sole authority to disseminate Dianetics and Scientology.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Apr 2007 03:04 am |
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While it is therefore both silly and self-destructive for the established religions to persist with beliefs which are plainly irrational and in many cases ridiculous, at least they have the excuse that these beliefs have their origin in times when irrational beliefs were universally held. What excuse is there for Scientology, which was born in the middle of the 20th century?
In short, you can argue all day about whether it is sillier to argue that humankind was hatched from a single giant clam, or that Christ rose from the dead, but at least when Christians first made the assertion it wasn't self-evidently ludicrous (as it is now, to all except a declining number of people who continue to obscure the essential and eternal aspects of Christ's message with this sort of claptrap).
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Anna
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Posted: 13 Apr 2007 04:13 am |
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 Mormonism seems to fit into this category also, I think?
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 13 Apr 2007 05:50 am |
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Well, I'm inclined to think so, but imagine a scale of religious silliness, from one to ten - with "silliness" being defined as "the extent to which fantastic ideas, impervious to scientific proof, are central to the beliefs of the practitioners of this creed".
In this definition, the words central to the belief of the practitioners of this creed are critically important. The wilder shores of belief should, I believe, be dismissed from consideration.
So: where would the major religions fit on such a scale?
I suggest that it might look something like this:
0-4: nothing
6-7: mainstream Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism etc etc
8: Mormonism, Exclusive Brethren etc etc
10: Scientology
But it doesn't really matter how cranky a religion is, so long as it doesn't affect non-believers. From that point of view, militant Christianity and fundamentalist Islam are of much greater concern than Scientology and Mormonism, I'd have thought.
The Mormon Temple in San Diego:
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 12 Jun 2007 11:15 pm |
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I haven't heard or read of it anywhere, but I can't help wonder if it is Scientology that is responsible for the new ever so sweet and innocent Paris Hilton (haha) and her "God has released me", along with her ambitions to save every single chicken in the world.
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 12 Jun 2007 11:19 pm |
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With thanks to http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i20171
"Twin Towers, Infirmary, Channeling her message through Barbara Walters, Paris Hilton has come clean admitting that she is, in fact, smart. The bimbo exterior she's been exposing for so long publicly has been nothing short of an illusionary sham.
Writers at The Spoof have repeatedly reported that Hilton is a mad scientist genius, manipulating the media for the ultimate purpose of evil.
"I'm not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. "Now, I would like to make a difference. God has given me this new chance." Paris Hilton.
Just to prove how smart she is, Paris decided to use the word act three times in two sentences. Not just smart but a biological thesaurus and master linguist to boot.
It's only taken her seven days' incarceration to find God. Most jail house, religious epiphanies take inmates years to attain. Paris has found clarity in God in one short week, illustrating her sponge like learning abilities.
Not only has Paris found God in the can but her chartable side has been exposed as well. She's saying she wants to work for one of the breast cancer charities, which her grandmother battled, or Multiple Sclerosis, which her father's mother suffered from. She also said she'd like to start her own foundation, maybe something like, Bimbos Be Gone, that steers young Bimbetts in the right direction in life.
Paris has even gone as far as not looking in a mirror since her re incarceration, saying looks really don't matter, it's what's inside that counts.
Paris has the chance to really go big, starting with the profits from the estimated $500,000 jail picture, 1 million dollar price on the jail journal, the 2 million dollar film rights and the 10 million in personal appearances and any other ancillary jail windfalls. Together a start up charity could launch with 13.5 million just from Paris's jail fallout.
Will Paris maintain her new found clarity stance once released? Only time will tell.
A Buck E. Prediction, Paris will get out, chill for a week, then as the jail scum washes off, it'll be back to business as usual.
From the desk of
Buck E Filbert
6/11/07 "
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Sep 2007 11:13 pm |
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It occurs to me that there should be some photographs here of the extraordinary performance on the Oprah Winfrey Show of 23 June, 2005, by Scientologist Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, otherwise known as "Tom Cruise".
You can see the performance in its entirety here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5883772879840922003
Here is Tom murdering Oprah with a mind ray:
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Sep 2007 11:17 pm |
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| Here he is jumping up and down on Oprah's couch: Attached Image (viewed 63 times):
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 5 Sep 2007 11:19 pm |
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| At this stage, Oprah was still smiling, albeit increasingly nervously: Attached Image (viewed 58 times):
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Current time is 03:26 am |
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